A film about a talented newcomer secretly dubbing the voice of a screechy silent star was itself built on the same deception: Debbie Reynolds was dubbed by Jean Hagen, the very actress playing the star she was supposedly dubbing. This episode explores the making, myths, and legacy of the 1952 MGM musical, starting with producer Arthur Freed handing writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green a catalog of old songs he had written with Nacio Herb Brown and telling them to build a movie around them.

The conversation covers the writers' near-resignation, the singing-cowboy idea they abandoned, the 1927 sound transition that finally gave the story its spine, Gene Kelly filming the title number with a 103-degree fever in a shrinking wool suit, Reynolds sobbing under a piano before Fred Astaire found her, and Donald O'Connor's hospitalization after Mose ...